Language Maintenance After Forty Years: Nahuatl in Mexico’s Huanchinango Towns

The aim of the thesis project is to explore the language behaviour and attitudes of Nahuatl communities in the face of language endangerment, and how they are contributing to the language maintenance and revitalization efforts. Nahuatl is one of 72 indigenous languages in Mexico with over one and half million speakers . The research project will focus on the Malinche Volcano region in Puebla-Tlaxcala, in central Mexico. It builds on Hill and Hill’s (1986) seminal work on the sociolinguistic situation of the Nahuatl-speaking population in the Malinche communities. It will investigate if such negative sentiments towards Nahuatl currently persist and have worsened especially after decades of globalization, urbanization, migration and modernization in Mexico. It proposes to contribute to the language maintenance, documentation and revitalization of endangered indigenous languages by providing insight into the language practices, beliefs and attitudes of Nahuatl communities and how these inform, maintain, and promote language use.

Faculty Supervisor:

Joyce Bruhn de Garavito

Student:

Partner:

Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

Discipline:

Sociology

Sector:

Education

University:

Western University

Program: